Hold Still

This book is a wonderful look into how people deal with grief. It’s a little funny, a little sad, and a lot of real. A definite must read for me.

Having a hard time finishing it I’m about half way the book might just stop reading nothing has really happened

I read this book for the first time in middle school and fell in love with it. It's heart brakingly wonderfull. If you like a sad story I would recommend it for sure!

This book was so good. I'm happy I read it.

[Disclosure: Nina was a grad school classmate of my wife in the Mills MFA program, and a friend, so naturally I was going to support her by reading her book. But as also happened with my other friend Brent's Night Angel trilogy, once I got into it, I wasn't reading it for her--I was reading it for me.] Hold Still mostly takes place in the fictional inland East Bay suburb of Los Cerros, but the most important aspect of the setting is not geography, but the shaky terrain of adolescence. There may be a fortunate few readers who can't identify with feeling insecure around the popular kids, wondering how to approach a new potential friendship, and what to do about a crush, but for the rest of us, these matters will be all too familiar. Even though I graduated from high school fifteen years ago, Hold Still brought back all too well the chronic awkwardness of high school, the seeming momentousness of small decisions and incidents, and the violent, irrational mood swings that would accompany the outcomes of such events. There were times when I felt the characters and their dialogue were more mature than I'd expect from 16-year-olds (or at least, how I was when I was 16), but this was a small pimple on the otherwise beautiful, arresting face of this book. The best thing about Hold Still, and the main reason I gave it five stars, was its true ear for human feelings; in the instances where I'd experienced something similar to what the book described, I thought "Yes, that's how it was!" and in the other instances where I hadn't, my reaction was always "Yes, that's how it would be." I'm thankful that I never had a friend commit suicide, but the swirling mix of despair, rage, guilt, loss, antisociability felt painfully realistic. Regarding Nina's prose in this book, there were not many sentences that stopped me and made me enviously think "Wow, I wish I'd written that!" (As is often the case with Oscar Wilde, Anthony Doerr, or Neal Stephenson, each breathtaking stylists in their own way.) However, there were countless times (including the three or four spots where I teared up) where I wished that I'd felt that, or thought that, or perhaps more accurately, observed and noted that. What this story shows off more than anything is Nina's keen ear for powerful truths, and just as good acting draws attention not to itself but to the story being told, Nina's gracefully unadorned style provides a clear window into the human heart--and in that way, it's the best style of all.

In Los Cerros, CA it's the first day of Caitlin's junior year at Vista High. In familiar first-day fashion "all the girls are squealing and hugging as if it's been years since they've laid eyes on each other. The guys are slamming their hands down on one another's backs which I guess is supposed to mean something nice." But, for Caitlin, the world is no longer familiar. Ingrid, her best friend, the one with whom Caitlin was so close they were often mistaken for sisters, committed suicide at the end of their sophomore year, leaving Caitlin to drift among her classmates as the other half to a whole that no longer exists. With Caitlin's vividly rendered voice as our guide, Nina LaCour'sHold Still takes the reader on the journey of a young woman struggling to deal with an unimaginable loss. Yet LaCour does not leave Caitlin to wander alone. Caitlin finds Ingrid's journal tucked beneath her bed. "Here's how I feel: People take one another for granted . . . You never look up, in a moment that feels like every moment of your life, and think, Soon this will be over. But I understand more now. About the way life works. I know that when I finish reading Ingrid's journal, there won't be anything new between us ever again. "So when I get home, I lock my room door even though I'm the only one home, take Ingrid's journal out, and just hold it for a little while. I look at the drawing on the first page again. And then I put the journal back. I'm going to try and make her last." Through the intense rush of her handwritten entries and wistful beauty of her drawings (lettering and art by the talented Mia Nolting), Ingrid is resurrected. As they are doled out, Caitlin and the reader explore the depths of her passions and despair, her flashes of quick dark humor, the enormity of the absence Ingrid left behind. The entries are the srong running stitch keeping the novel bound at its seams. They are also Caitlin's means of redemption, her eventual path back to herself. The strength of LaCour's writing is evident throughout Hold Still. The protagonist's voices are so perfectly sixteen. For young readers, I imagine they will be instantly familiar--the endless, eyerolling exasperation with adults who just don't get it; the desperate search for confirmation and approval; the wonder of life expanding before their eyes with each new person, thought, and experience. And for readers for whom high school is merely a stack of dusty yearbooks on some forgotten shelf, it is an opportunity to re-enter this world of firsts. First friends: "I walked out, feeling how straight my hair was, how great my pants fit, how nice my bracelets sounded. I bent down and I drank the cold drinking-fountain water and I felt like, This is it. My life is starting. And when I got back to my seat there was a new note that said, I'm Ingrid. "I'm Caitlin, I wrote back. "And then we were friends. It was that easy." Crushes, loves, the delight of first hearing a song that truly speaks to you: "It was

Despite the heavy subject matter, it's impossible not to enjoy every page, every line of this wonderful book. Caitlin and her friends are unforgettable characters. The story, the symbolism, and Nina's amazing lyrical talent succeed in conveying several contrasting emotions and sentiments in a very true and very resonating manner. I won't give away and details about the plot, but know that you will be engaged, entertained, and touched from page one to the very end. (And it's truly not just for "young adults"!)

The night that Ingrid told Caitlin, "I'll go wherever you go. But by dawn Ingrid, and her promise is gone. Caitlin was left alone. Ingrid's suicide immobilizes Caitlin, leaving her unsure of her place in a new world that she doesn't recognize. She can't enjoy anything without her best friend. But Ingrid left more then just her memory behind. She left a journal accounting her last days behind -just for Caitlin. She travels through the her memories of Ingrid and is in search of a renewal of hope. Hold Still is one of those books that you have to think about. It is so strong and it is hard to tell if you like it. Caitlin is a realistic girl in a very hard and real situation. At the beginning of the book, she is in a very dark place and you can tell that she really wants to come to terms with Ingrid's suicide. She is a really interesting character. Hold Still had a great plot. It was also very original novel about depression. LaCour is a great writer and captured all the emotions of a teen that goes through at a time like this. I recommend that you check out, Hold Still.